Why does the Planning Pass exist?
For over 23 years now, I have been helping people plan their Egypt trips, organising tours, putting them up at Mara House in Luxor and connecting them with great guides all over Egypt. And I don’t just mean booking things. I spend a lot of time getting to know exactly what you want from Egypt – what interests you, what doesn’t, how you like to travel and what will make the trip genuinely memorable for you.
That takes time. Quite a lot of it, actually. Because my aim isn’t for you to go home saying, “I’ve done Egypt.” I want you to go home thinking, “I want to come back.”
The other thing I have learned over all these years is that many people simply don’t realise how limited some things in Egypt really are.
There are only so many good hotel rooms. Only so many good dahabiyas and cruise boats. Internal flights are ALWAYS limited in good seasons. Certain guides get booked months ahead. And when I talk about opening closed doors for you that normally have “limited exclusive access” – I mean exactly that:
LIMITED & EXCLUSIVE
Once you have decided to come to Egypt the window of time between your planning of your dream trip and actually being able to book it as you planned it may, MAY be a very short time frame. Waiting can change your Egyptian dream holiday.
Egypt is different
Economics have changed in Egypt, and I appreciate the financial cost involved for anyone wanting to come here. It’s natural to want the best deal – we all search for one every day.
However, what you may not realise is that Egypt is different when it comes to planning a trip.
Culture is different. Language is different. Most of all, the way of doing business is different – and that’s the most important piece of information I can give you.
If you want to book a trip to Spain, Germany or even Ireland, you research online or go to a local travel agent, you get an array of itineraries and prices, you pay, you go, and 99% of the time you get exactly what you booked. That’s the end of it.
How the system in Egypt really works
- Egyptian operators compete online solely on price for your direct booking, and that price war is exactly what pushes guides into the shopping-commission trap that you need to understand.
- Some websites give you a phone number for what appears to be the Egyptian company in your own country.
- Overseas agents take your booking and hand you over to their contracted local operator – a DMC, a Destination Management Company – and those Egyptian agents are competing on price too in order to be taken on by the overseas travel and tour companies.
- Often the foreign agent has, at best, been on an all-expenses-paid inspection trip to Egypt, where they experienced only the best – not necessarily what they’ll be selling you.
That’s just background on the industry. Here’s what it has to do with the people who email me for prices, itineraries and questions.
Why I am changing the way I work
I really love preparing itineraries for clients. And when my guides introduce someone to something extra, special or completely out of the ordinary that wasn’t on the itinerary – and that person comes back to me afterwards full of delight and thanks – well, that really and truly makes my day!
But now, I want you to put yourself in my shoes for a moment.
Really do it.
Imagine you are me.
You open your email several times a day and there is always mail. An enquiry from the website. Someone asking for an itinerary. Someone wanting prices. Follow-up questions about a quote. Clarifications. More questions. Itinerary changes, Add-ons, Deletions. Confirmations. Payment Receipts.
And so it goes on.
It is actually wonderful. It is stimulating and gratifying and it means the website is working. People want to come to Egypt and they want you to help them. So you answer them all.
But then you don’t just close your email and get on with something else.
Because you are me, you have to go back through the emails that were already sitting there before you opened your inbox this time. You have labelled them Booked, Waiting for response, Waiting for confirmation or Waiting for payment.
So you check the last three. And the lists are long.
You send reminders. You are waiting for a response. You are waiting for confirmation. You are waiting for payment. Sometimes you even give someone a very polite “Have you changed your mind?” option.
BUT the one that has finally made me change the way I work is:
“Waiting for confirmation”
Now put yourself in my shoes again.
Most of the time, the person I have been communicating with has done absolutely nothing wrong. They have simply got busy. Something else has happened in their life. Perhaps there is an urgent matter needing their attention. Or perhaps their mind simply lets go of the project because the urgency of the planning is finished. The itinerary is done. Everything is sorted.
YOU (Mara) has it all in hand.
But you are me. And you know something they don’t know. You know that any one of the things in that carefully constructed itinerary may change, disappear or become unavailable at any time. And the person you are waiting for may have no idea that they actually need to confirm and pay before those things can be secured. That is the part that is so difficult for me.
Because if something important – an internal flight from Cairo to Luxor at the start of the trip, for example – can no longer be booked, suddenly the whole itinerary may have to change.
At worst, the entire trip may have to be cancelled.
At very best, you are starting the work again.
And remember: you are me.
You have already spent hours – sometimes days – thinking about this person’s trip. Working out the logistics. Emailing suppliers. Checking possibilities. Moving things around. Using your experience to make all the moving pieces fit together like the perfect completed jigsaw that it is.
You have put your time, your knowledge and a huge amount of brain energy into it. AND many other itineraries at the same time, which means that with every question, every change you have to go back and revisit all the information already on that client’s sheet – add to it, delete it or change it. That is a LOT of brain energy! It is much like juggling 20 plastic balls all at the same time.
The client didn’t mean to cause a problem. They weren’t being difficult. They simply didn’t realise what was happening behind the scenes.
But you did.
And now, after all that work, you are the one left carrying the consequences because they didn’t confirm, or starting again.
How do you feel?
That’s why I am changing the way I work.
If two itineraries read the same – are they really the same?
Occasionally I get clients who go through all the processes above right up to the payment – yes, they even confirm the booking but then – well they just disappear into thin air, never to be heard from again. The occasional one will answer my question “Have you changed your mind or decided to book elsewhere” with a “sorry for not getting back to you but we have made alternative arrangements”. Putting it bluntly, they have taken the itinerary and work I did with them to another supplier and just asked for the lowest price. Are they on a winner? No, because they haven’t figured out the answer to these two questions: What am I really going to pay for my Egyptian holiday? and How do cheap tours really work and pay for themselves?
And that is why two itineraries that look identical in paper can be and usually are – worlds apart. Am I being nasty? No, I am telling you why I am changing the way I work.
What hasn’t changed
If someone wants to build an itinerary over four or five emails and then walk away – no problem.
If they want to build it and book – great.
That’s how this has always worked, and that hasn’t changed with me.
When the Planning Pass applies
The Planning Pass is for the person who is not going to commit after the first four or five emails. BUT wants to continue the conversation. The information up to that limit is free. If you are not ready to commit to a booking with me then the planning fee comes into play at this stage. The fee is €250 refundable of the cost of the full itinerary if you decide to complete the booking with me. If you don’t book – that is payment for my planning time and you may take the itinerary to any supplier you wish with my blessing and hope we get together again any time.
For the person ready to commit to working and booking with me – In four or five emails we can establish a broad outline – Egypt and it’s basic options is not that huge! – and if you are ready to commit with a small deposit then I will answer your emails ad infinitum gladly because you have committed to me.
I don’t know any Egyptian travel agent or tour operator who will give you the time and attention to detail that I do with all my clients. And if you are working with a non-Egyptian agent then they can’t do it for you either because they have to hand over the actual logistics of your trip to an Egyptian DMC – Destination Management Company – that you don’t even know. This has been blunt but it is reality.